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6 TikTok Myths, Debunked in 2022

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6 TikTok Myths, Debunked in 2022

Many marketers have flirted with the idea of trying TikTok, but certain misconceptions have stood in the way.

For instance, isn’t it just a platform for teens? Specifically, teens who lip-sync?

To help curb the confusion, we’ve rounded up a list of common TikTok myths to help you decide whether it deserves a spot on your marking roster. Let’s dive in.

Free Ebook: The Marketer's Guide to TikTok for Business [Download Now]

Myth 1: TikTok’s audience is too young.

Brands mistakenly assume that TikTok is just for teens and young adults. Although it initially exploded in popularity with the Gen Z crowd, TikTok is quickly “growing up.” In fact, 36% of TikTok users in 2021 were between 35 and 54 years old, a 10% increase from the year before.

On top of that, 50% of Millennials report visiting TikTok in the last three months, along with 38% of Gen X-ers, according to HubSpot’s 2022 Consumers Trends Report. We predict these numbers will continue to rise as TikTok cements itself as a mainstream social platform.

Myth 2: TikTok is just for lip-synching and dancing.

While these types of videos certainly exist on TikTok, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. As its audience has grown more diverse, so too has its content.

Nowadays, you can find videos that hit almost any niche. For example, some of the most popular TikTok categories include cooking recipes, beauty tutorials, fitness routines, life hacks, and even pet videos. This also means TikTok can work for a variety of brands across different industries.

For example, Ryanair, a European airline, is a fan favorite on TikTok with almost two million TikTok followers. DuoLingo, a language learning app, is another favorite with over four million followers. Then there’s Red Bull, a popular energy drink, with almost 7 million followers. These are wildly different brands, from different industries, that have built a healthy audience on TikTok.

Curious which brands are winning on TikTok? Check out this helpful guide to get inspired.

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Myth 3: If your brand is “serious,” TikTok isn’t for you.

TikTok has a reputation for being quirky — but if your brand is on the serious side, don’t let this scare you away. Instead, try approaching your brand from a different angle.

For example, take a look at Planet Money, an NPR-backed podcast that covers complex topics about the economy. Not the most entertaining topic in the world, right? Yet, it’s raked up almost 750,000 followers.

From gentrification to mortgages, no topic is too serious for Planet Money to tackle with a humorous spin. Need convincing? Take a look at the following video that asks, “Is free shipping really free?”

If you feel your brand is too “serious” for TikTok, take a note from Planet Money and approach your brand — and the content you create — from a different lens. At the end of the day, it’s about sharing value and delivering it in an engaging way — and that’s a goal almost any brand can attain.

Myth 4: You need a lot of followers to go viral.

On TikTok, anyone can go viral. Even accounts with a handful of followers can spark millions of views on a great video.

Its viral nature is a direct result of its algorithm. How does it work? The algorithm pinpoints users that may enjoy your content based on their previous watch history, hashtag searches, and current location. Then, it will push your video to their feed. If enough people engage with it, the algorithm will share it to even more people. Next thing you know, you have a viral hit.

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Here’s an example: suppose you post a video of yourself hiking a mountain. The algorithm shows your video to users who live nearby, as well as those who recently searched for hiking trails on the platform. It notices a lot of people “liking” and commenting on the video, so it shares it to more users.

Long story short, if you’re worried you won’t get any traction on TikTok, it’s helpful to remember that the algorithm is on your side, enabling you to reach more people outside of your immediate followers.

Myth 5: Because TikTok videos are shorter, users are less engaged.

TikTok is known for its short, bite-sized content. However, this creates an illusion that users don’t spend much time on the platform.

Fortunately, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, TikTok has an average user session of 10.85 minutes, far exceeding any other social media platform. On top of that, users in the U.S. open the TikTok app 8 times a day on average.

Myth 6: TikTok is a fad.

Will TikTok meet the same fate as Myspace and Tumblr? While it’s too early to call, I’d argue that it doesn’t really matter.

For one, short-form video is dominating the social media landscape. If TikTok meets its demise, consumers will still crave this content. The audience may jump to a new platform, or migrate to an existing one. Either way, you still need to know how to create engaging, snackable content — and TikTok is the leading platform to hone this skill.

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Second, if you build your brand correctly, no rise or fall of a single platform will topple it. If you build a strong community around your brand, it will become unshakeable. But in order to do this, you need to go where your audience is — and, for right now, that might be TikTok.

Back To You

Let’s end with one final myth: it’s too late to join TikTok.

This is untrue, especially if your audience is active there. Further, its high engagement rates, stellar growth potential, and powerful algorithm can take your digital marketing to the next level. That said, time is of the essence. Brands that establish a presence on TikTok now can stay ahead of the curve.

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]

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YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples

Introduction

With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.

Types of YouTube Ads

Video Ads

  • Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
  • Types:
    • In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
    • Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.

Display Ads

  • Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
  • Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).

Companion Banners

  • Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
  • Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.

YouTube Ad Specs by Type

Skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
    • Action: 15-20 seconds

Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads

  • Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
  • Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Vertical: 9:16
    • Square: 1:1

Bumper Ads

  • Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
  • File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 640 x 360px
    • Vertical: 480 x 360px

In-feed Ads

  • Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
  • Resolution:
    • Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
    • Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
    • Square: 1080 x 1080px
  • Aspect Ratio:
    • Horizontal: 16:9
    • Square: 1:1
  • Length:
    • Awareness: 15-20 seconds
    • Consideration: 2-3 minutes
  • Headline/Description:
    • Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
    • Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line

Display Ads

  • Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
  • Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
  • File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
  • File Size: Max 150KB.
  • Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.

Outstream Ads

  • Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
  • Logo Specs:
    • Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
    • File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
    • Max Size: 200KB.

Masthead Ads

  • Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
  • Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
  • File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).

Conclusion

YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!

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Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists

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Why We Are Always 'Clicking to Buy', According to Psychologists

Amazon pillows.

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

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A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots

Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.

To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.

Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots

Salesforce’s evolving architecture

It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?

“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”

Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”

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That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.

“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.

Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”

Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot

“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.

For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”

Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”

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It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”

What’s new about Einstein Personalization

Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?

“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”

Finally, trust

One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.

“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”

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